


i wish i could be there now

by karasunonolibero



Series: tell me you believe in that [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sad Ending, no homophobia because i said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21755557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunonolibero/pseuds/karasunonolibero
Summary: Oikawa’s never thought about leaving town or going to college—why would he, when he knows he’ll just start working for his dad in the restaurant, just like his sister did when she graduated?He thought Iwaizumi’s future was set, too. He thought Iwaizumi would go to work on his family’s farm and they’d live out their days here together. That’s just what everyone here did.But now Iwaizumi is talking about leaving and suddenly, the rest of Oikawa’s life feels like a giant question mark.~or, Oikawa and Iwaizumi have grown up together in this small town, but when Iwaizumi leaves for three years, Oikawa realizes that everything he thought was forever...isn't.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Original Female Character(s)
Series: tell me you believe in that [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1490510
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	i wish i could be there now

**Author's Note:**

> oooo it's about time i updated this series! here's the third installment, aka The Really Sad One. again the series is based on [this post](https://sawayakakuns.tumblr.com/post/151632804671/unsends-in-one-universe), and this fic (more like a drabble really) is inspired by the bottom left poem. 
> 
> a quick warning before we start: there is a brief, non-graphic first time sex scene where iwaizumi is 18 and oikawa is 17 (about two weeks from turning 18)—just wanted to give a heads-up. 
> 
> enjoy!

The first day of summer always feels like a promise. Like a promise of starry nights spent in the grass, sweet watermelon and peaches, no homework, and long, lazy days.

Oikawa Tooru is nine years old and barefoot as he runs out his front door, screen door swinging, in his swimming trunks. He’s been to the creek enough times now that his feet know the way without him having to think. Down the hill, to the left, past the tree with the gnarled branches and the bees nest, and down the slope.

Iwaizumi is waiting there for him. Oikawa grins. Even when they fight, even when Iwaizumi yells at him for being forgetful or ridiculous, he’s always waiting there.

Maybe Iwaizumi feels like a promise, too.

~

The Iwaizumis’ farm is right across the street from Oikawa’s house. Sometimes, after his homework and chores are all done, he likes to sit out on the fence and watch Iwaizumi and yell jokes at him and laugh when Iwaizumi tells him to shut up. They’ve been doing it for years, and no matter how much Iwaizumi yells, he never tells Oikawa to actually stop.

When Oikawa is thirteen, something begins to change. When it’s especially hot, Iwaizumi works shirtless, and even from across the street, Oikawa can see the sweat glistening along the lines of the muscles Iwaizumi’s beginning to develop. Sometimes he thinks about hopping over the fence with a rag, standing close and wiping the sweat from his chest. Bringing him water and watching him gulp it down.

On the days he has those thoughts, he tells fewer jokes. If Iwaizumi notices, he never says anything. Oikawa doesn’t think he’d know what to do if Iwaizumi ever did.

~

“I think I want to try to go to college.”

They’re in high school. Oikawa’s never thought about leaving town or going to college—why would he, when he knows he’ll just start working for his dad in the restaurant, just like his sister did when she graduated?

He thought Iwaizumi’s future was set, too. He thought Iwaizumi would go to work on his family’s farm and they’d live out their days here together. That’s just what everyone here did.

But now Iwaizumi is talking about leaving and suddenly, the rest of Oikawa’s life feels like a giant question mark.

“Why?” is the first thing Oikawa can think to ask. He sits up from where he’s been lying on his bed trying to slog through the next three chapters of a book for English class. “Where would you even go?”

Iwaizumi shrugs. He doesn’t look up from his math homework. “Anywhere. Don’t you ever get bored here?”

“Never,” Oikawa replies instantly. Sure, the town is small and there’s not a _lot_ to do once everything closes, but now that they’re old enough to drive, the world is at their fingertips. But apparently, while Oikawa was thinking of driving forty-five minutes for mini golf, Iwaizumi was thinking about going even farther.

“I have a meeting with my advisor tomorrow.” Iwaizumi’s pencil stops scratching at the paper. “I want to know what’s out there.”

Oikawa wants to ask him if he’s serious, to remind him of all the promises they made each other when they were young, to tell him not to leave. All he says is, “Okay.”

~

Iwaizumi is going to leave.

He’s got a diploma in his hand and a scholarship to some college in a city eight hours and a whole state away, and he is going to leave.

Oikawa knows Iwaizumi is excited. He’s happy, really, that Iwaizumi’s gotten what he wanted. But Oikawa decides that Iwaizumi can leave him and leave this town, but he is not allowed to forget.

So they spend their last summer together the way they always have—swimming in the creek, eating peaches right off the trees, driving hours out of town to find mischief somewhere else. And things…things change again. Iwaizumi is no longer the lean-muscled kid he was at thirteen. Now he’s eighteen and built, the years of hard labor combined with the training of the varsity football team stripping his body of fat and giving him planes and valleys of cut muscle. Oikawa’s noticed it before, but it’s almost more apparent now, when they strip off their shirts under the hot Georgia sun and Iwaizumi’s abs are on full display. Oikawa stares, as always, but instead of saying nothing, Iwaizumi stares back now.

Oikawa isn’t sure exactly when the lingering gazes become curious touches which become tentative brushes of lips which become real kisses. He just knows it’s not too long after graduation, because before he knows it, the Fourth of July rolls around and it’s time for the town’s annual celebration. He gathers in the street with his friends and family and neighbors, and waves sparklers in Iwaizumi’s face and drops his hot dog in the grass and laughs when the Sawamuras’ dog snatches it from his hand.

As the night wears on and the younger ones start to yawn, the teenagers start to break away from the adults, couples pairing off and groups of friends wandering away to have some privacy. Oikawa meets Iwaizumi’s eyes, and Iwaizumi tilts his head in a silent question as he grabs a blanket. Oikawa nods and follows him down the hill, to the left, past the gnarled tree with the wasps nest and down the slope.

Down here, the trees block out most of the sky, but the fireworks being shot off are still visible above the treeline. Iwaizumi lays the blanket out under the oak tree they used to jump out of and motions for Oikawa to join him. They kiss, the explosions lighting up the sky above them as Iwaizumi pulls Oikawa into his lap and they tangle together.

Iwaizumi coaxes the sweetest pleasures from his body that night, until the only noises Oikawa can make are quiet moans and the only sound he can hear is his own name, panted into his ear from behind. After, they lie together, touching each other’s faces with nervous fingertips and shy smiles.

“I liked that,” Oikawa tells him.

“Me, too.”

They keep doing it, but they don’t talk about it. Iwaizumi tries, but Oikawa always shushes him with a kiss. Iwaizumi’s departure date looms at the end of the summer, like a stormcloud lurking miles away. It’s coming and there’s nothing anyone can do it stop it.

Their last day together, Oikawa sits on Iwaizumi’s bed as he packs for college, dutifully reading off the packing list when Iwaizumi asks. He pretends Iwaizumi is just going on vacation and he’ll be back in a week. He hopes, when the moon lights up the bedroom and paints Iwaizumi’s face in silver, that this isn’t the last time they’ll be together, and he hopes for dozens more nights like this, whenever he can get them.

Morning comes all too soon. Iwaizumi’s phone alarm blares through the silence of the dawn, and Oikawa feels the bed dip and the warmth leave his side. Before Iwaizumi can grab his bags and head downstairs, Oikawa reaches out and grabs his wrist. “Hajime.”

“I have to go. I’ll miss my flight.”

“I know. I’m not stopping you.” Oikawa stares him down, willing him to understand his next words. Praying that they’ll stick. “Don’t forget me.”

Iwaizumi hesitates, then kisses Oikawa’s forehead.

“I could never.”

~

Iwaizumi leaves, and Oikawa goes to work. It’s fine. He knows this has been his path. He’s been ready. But sometimes, he finds himself wondering if he should have gone, too. When they were kids, Iwaizumi was always at the creek waiting for him. Now there’s no one to wait for Iwaizumi.

They keep in touch, at first. Iwaizumi texts that the city is loud and busy and unfriendly and that he misses home, but that he doesn’t have the money to fly back and visit. Not even for Thanksgiving. Oikawa tells him it’s okay and that he hopes he’s doing well.

But as the weeks drag on, the tone of Iwaizumi’s texts shifts for the positive. Oikawa can pinpoint the days Iwaizumi adjusts to some other aspect of city life. Iwaizumi starts using whatever fancy words that Starbucks uses to name their drink sizes and stops mentioning getting lost. He even starts talking about friends he’s making, people he’s hanging out when when he’s not doing homework.

Oikawa has to resist the petty urge to ask if Iwaizumi misses him.

He knows that drifting apart happens when people move away from each other. He’s seen it in movies, read about it in books, seen it happen in this town. He just never thought it would happen to him and Iwaizumi. But it is, it’s happening—Iwaizumi’s texts become less and less frequent until Oikawa’s lucky to get one text back. He doesn’t pick up the phone when Oikawa calls, but he’s obviously alive, as evidenced by his new Instagram account that Oikawa receives a notification for. And he’s obviously found a job, judging by the additions to his wardrobe. He watches Iwaizumi start dressing differently, giving up his simple t-shirts and boots for fitted button-downs and sleek pants. And he looks damn good in everything, though Oikawa is too bitter to grace any of his photos with a like.

The biggest shock are the tattoos.

What starts as a single stag on Iwaizumi’s right bicep becomes a full arm of designs, some small, some large, but all stark black ink against his skin. There’s an anchor, a puzzle piece, a butterfly. Oikawa wonders what they all mean.

If Oikawa drives an hour to find a tattoo parlor and quietly get his own ink, it’s no one’s business but his own. And no one has to know that the rope is to go with the anchor, that the puzzle piece would fit with Iwaizumi’s, that the rose curling around his forearm hopes for a butterfly. It’s a desperate move, he knows, a last-ditch resort to find _something_ to keep him tied to Iwaizumi, but the sad thing is that Iwaizumi will probably never even know about it.

~

When Iwaizumi finally returns, it’s three years later and it’s with someone. A woman.

“This is my fiancée, Elena.”

So, not only a woman, but a _fiancée_. Iwaizumi never even mentioned seeing anyone.

Oikawa shouldn’t feel betrayed. He and Iwaizumi were never together in the first place, he tells himself as he watches the woman smile up at Iwaizumi adoringly. But this isn’t _right_. This can’t be right. His mouth feels dry as his eyes dart to Iwaizumi’s face, searching his expression for something, _anything_ , that would mean this can’t be true, that this is some kind of ruse. But Iwaizumi is looking back at her the exact same way, and in that moment Oikawa realizes he doesn’t stand a chance. Because the only thing he’s good at is his love for Iwaizumi, which he’s tried so hard to hold inside of him for so long but still spilled out onto his skin for the world to see.

So he smiles, lips tight, and forces himself to look at her. She’s pretty, with sharp blue eyes and wavy blonde hair parted to the side and draped over one shoulder. Oikawa privately thinks she looks like a snake. Too cold, too slippery. “Congratulations,” he hears himself say. His voice sounds wooden in his own ears as he pulls his sleeve down to hide the rope tattoo circling his wrist. “I’m really happy for you both.”

Then he checks his phone, pretends to be surprised at the time, and mumbles a lie about meeting a friend as he walks away. The second he turns the corner, he breaks into a run.

Halfway home, he stops when he feels like something’s pressing so hard on his chest he can’t breathe, and he wonders how much it hurts to get tattoos removed.

~

Iwaizumi has been back for a month when he shows up on Oikawa’s doorstep at half past midnight.

“Cheating on me!” he roars. There’s no bite in his words, only resignation. “She’s been cheating on me with Mattsun ever since we came back here!”

“Hajime,” Oikawa murmurs, reaching out for his hand without thinking. “I—I’m sorry.”

“I can’t do it.” Iwaizumi hiccups, shaking his head. “Tooru, I can’t do this. I can’t marry her knowing she’s fallen out of love with me enough to cheat with a guy she’s known for a month.”

Oikawa frowns. Selfishly, he thinks this could be his chance. He could exploit this. He could take advantage of Iwaizumi’s fragile state and make the move he should have made years ago. But as much as he loves Iwaizumi, he also loves him enough to want him happy. Even if it’s with somebody else.

“Hajime, you’re a strong person,” Oikawa tells him. “And I know you can get through this. Just…did you let her explain?”

“What the fuck is there to explain?”

“I—I don’t know, but there must be some way to make up with her,” Oikawa says. He forces his lips up in a smile, hoping Iwaizumi can’t hear how hollow his words sound. It’s the last thing he wants to say, but he thinks it’s what Iwaizumi wants to hear.

It’s apparently not what Iwaizumi wants to hear.

“Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea,” he mutters, standing up so abruptly that Oikawa tumbles off the couch.

“Where are you going?” Oikawa calls, watching Iwaizumi shove his feet into his shoes and grab his jacket from the coathook.

“Out,” is Iwaizumi’s terse answer before the door slams shut and Oikawa is alone once again, like Iwaizumi was never here.

“Fine,” Oikawa says to his empty house, grabbing his keys off the counter. “I can go out, too.”

There are only two bars in town, and Oikawa chooses the one he knows Iwaizumi won’t be at. He picks the seedier one that’s closer to the edge of town, the one that reeks of smoke and cheap beer, and he sits himself at the bar and says yes every time he’s offered another pint and gets lost in artificial laughs and bad jukebox songs, and he does not think about Iwaizumi.

He stumbles home and sobs for reasons he can’t put his finger on and throws up in his toilet and wipes sweaty hair from his flushed face and does not think about Iwaizumi.

When Oikawa wakes up next, it’s to banging on his front door. Groaning and feeling like his head weighs a hundred pounds, Oikawa trudges to the door, hoping that whoever’s on the other side won’t judge his ragged appearance.

“Hajime?” he croaks out, blinking owlishly.

“We’re done,” Iwaizumi says.

Oikawa blinks again. “Us?”

“What—no, me and her, dumbass!” Iwaizumi sighs and shoulders his way into the house. Oikawa scowls, because he would have let Iwaizumi in if he’d just _waited_ a minute.

He shuts the door and heads into the living room, where Iwaizumi is pacing around the coffee table. “I told her we were done. That I couldn’t be with her after what she did. And she understood, I think, so. The wedding’s off.”

Oikawa frowns. “That’s—I’m sorry. I know you loved her.”

“Will you stop saying you’re sorry when I’m the one who should be sorry?” Iwaizumi exclaims, stopping short.

This is too much for Oikawa’s hungover brain to process. He’d said he was sorry because that’s what you say when your best friend breaks up with his fiancée, right? That was just good manners. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I messed up, okay?”

Now Oikawa’s even more confused. “Did you cheat on her too?” he asks lightly.

Wrong response. Iwaizumi lets loose a strangled growl and starts pacing again. “No, but I might as well have! She’s—she wasn’t fair to me but I wasn’t fair to her either, because up until yesterday I thought I knew what I wanted. I wanted her and I wanted a family and a house and a dog and kids and all that shit that people want. I thought that was my future and I accepted it. I thought I knew what I wanted but then I came home, and I saw you again for the first time in years, and _fuck_ , I realized what I want is _you_. I want all of that with _you_.”

Iwaizumi…wants him. Iwaizumi wants _him_. Oikawa’s loved him for so long he doesn’t know how not to be. This should be his dream come true. So why does he only feel numbness around his heart when he hears the words said out loud?

He should want to jump into Iwaizumi’s arms and admit that he wants him too, that he wants to move far away from here and start somewhere new where nobody knows their names or their histories. He should want the happy ending he’s dreamed about.

But this isn’t how he wanted it.

“Is that really it?” he asks, voice low. “Would you be here saying this if she didn’t cheat on you?”

“What?” Iwaizumi sputters.

“You said yourself you wanted her. You just said it.”

“And I said I realized that’s not what I wanted.”

“You shouldn’t have come back here, then. Because if you hadn’t come back, she wouldn’t have cheated on you with Mattsun and you would have been happy. Happily ever after.”

“Idiot, what part of this don’t you understand?” Iwaizumi turns on his heel and storms up to Oikawa, eyes burning into him. “I don’t want her. I want you. I care about you.”

Iwaizumi cares. Sure. Iwaizumi cared so much he stopped answering Oikawa’s calls and texts, let them drift apart and get too familiar with a distance they never should have known. Oikawa steels himself and bites out, “If you cared about me, then you never would have left.”

“Yeah, well, I cared enough to come back. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Iwaizumi shouts. “I came back to this fuckass town in the middle of _nowhere_ —”

“It’s not like you came back here for me, so don’t _fucking_ lie to me, Iwaizumi!” Iwaizumi flinches at the sudden use of his family name. Good. Oikawa wanted the sudden change to hurt. “You came back to this town, with that woman, to tell everyone you were engaged! You didn’t come back here for me!” Oikawa picks up an empty glass from the coffee table. He could throw it. He _wants_ to throw it. He feels jittery, violently so, like the only way to vent the anger is to destroy something that, for once, is not himself. “You left me! You left me here and it felt like a death sentence and you stopped texting and calling and what was I supposed to do? Did you expect to waltz back here after three fucking years and everything would be just fine? Do you know how hard it was to learn how to be without you?”

“You think it was easy for me?” Iwaizumi spits back. “To go from this town to a city that size? I thought it chew me up and spit me out some days. I missed the oak trees and the friendliness and Yukie’s fresh ice cream.”

“Then why didn’t you come home earlier?”

“I didn’t have the money!”

“What about after you started working, huh? You had to spend money on tattoos but you wouldn’t save any of it to come home?”

Iwaizumi sighs. “Because I thought if I came back, I’d never leave again.”

Oikawa shakes his head and lets out a watery laugh. “There it is. You wouldn’t come back for me even back then. Being away from here was more important than being with me.”

“Things change. People change.”

“Then come back to me when you have.” Oikawa takes a shuddering breath and points to the door. “Get out.”

“What?”

“I said, get out,” Oikawa says again, injecting more force into his voice. If Iwaizumi doesn’t leave soon, he’s going to break down, and he can’t have Iwaizumi seeing that. “You don’t know what you want and you don’t get to bat me around like a cat with a half-dead mouse while you sort yourself out. So go.”

“Oikawa, I—”

“Get the _fuck_ out of my house!” Oikawa cocks his arm back and throws the glass. It hits the wall next to the front door and shatters into a dozen pieces. He wishes it broke more. “Now!”

Iwaizumi leaves without another word, slamming the door so hard the pictures on the wall rattle. For a moment, Oikawa just stands there, rooted to the floor, chest heaving from the angry adrenaline coursing through his veins. He clenches his fist once, twice; and then he collapses on his couch, an arm thrown over his face as a sob chokes him.

~

Two days later, Sawamura Daichi tells Oikawa that Iwaizumi’s left town. Elena, too.

“I thought they broke up or something, but they left together, so maybe they worked it out,” Daichi says with a shrug, before switching the topic like he hadn’t just shattered Oikawa’s world.

That night, Oikawa’s thumb hovers over Iwaizumi’s contact in his phone. He takes a deep breath and hits the delete button.

_Come back to me when you’ve changed._

Either Iwaizumi never changes, or he just chooses never to come back.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you for reading! the final installment in this series is coming next year, sometime in the spring/summer. in the meantime, let me know what you thought in the comments, or visit me on [tumblr](http://karasunonolibero.tumblr.com), if you feel so inclined x


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